Abi Morgan

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This is the B B C.

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Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.

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For rights' reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast. You can find over two thousand more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Disc's website.

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My castaway this week is the stage and screenwriter Abbie Morgan. Whether it's film, T V or Theatre, it's drama with a capital D that dominates much of her work. Big, diverse subjects like women's suffrage, the tsunami, satirism, people trafficking, the First World War, world shaping events made personal and vividly poignant by her pen.

Presenter1:13

It's perhaps unsurprising that she began by writing for the stage. Her mother is the actress Pat England, her father the late theatre director Gareth Morgan. As a child, homework would be slogged over in theatre cafes, and bit parts taken up in her dad's productions. Indeed, for a very short time, she thought working with other people's lines would suit her too, and she tried her hand at acting. But, unlikely as it may seem, a monologue about a woman eating a lettuce put paid to that, and set her on the road to becoming one of Britain's most prolific contemporary dramatists. Her series Sex Traffic alone won eight BAFTAs. She says When writing, you can be calm. The thing about it is, you set yourself a riddle every day to solve. That is very satisfying. It is order amid chaos. Welcome then, we hope, to the calm of the Desert Islands, Abby Morgan.

Speaker 32:06

Yeah.

Presenter2:08

Tell me then, this idea, this intriguing one, setting yourself a little riddle every day. What what form does that take as you sit down to write? I mean I I don't do Sudoku, I don't do crosswords. My lovely partner and children are great chess players and I'm not good at games. And I think it's because every day I feel like I'm doing my own form of mental Sudoku. Writing is very mathematical and I'm terrible at maths. But it is very mathematical. It's very mathematical because it's about structure and order. And specifically if you're doing screenplay writing, it's really about order and rhythm and how many pages. And you're constantly thinking about the shape. Is it going to be sixty minutes? Is it a one twenty? But I do have

Abi Morgan2:32

Right.

Presenter2:47

By Friday, I have to have finished 120 pages. Is it true that you try at least to write for eight hours a day? I try. Yeah, I fail often. I do a lot of internet shopping. But I. Lots of things you don't want turn out. Lots of things I don't want. I mean, one of the biggest things for me is, and I think for most writers, is planning your schedule. And the thing you try and claw back is time and time to be on your own. Yes, time to be on your own. So if you're living in a busy household with you, say, as your partner and your two kids, what are the rules for them? You know, mummy's working now. How does that work? You know, I've been incredibly fortunate. I think women often get asked, How do you juggle?

Abi Morgan2:59

Lots of things like

Abi Morgan3:12

Anyway But

Abi Morgan3:16

Yeah.

Presenter3:21

And I don't tried not to ask you that. Yeah, and I appreciate you not asking me, so I'll bring it up. But in a weird way, when they were younger, you would imagine that was harder. And that's when I had an office in my house. Oh, you don't anymore? I don't have an office in the house. I moved out about five years ago, and they're teenagers now, so it's kind of easier. You're desperately trying to get time with them. You know, they don't have time for you in the same way. But.

Abi Morgan3:21

And

Abi Morgan3:22

I tried not to ask you that.

Abi Morgan3:32

Oh, you don't anymore.

Presenter3:42

I've found the older I've got the more I've wanted to separate my work and my home life. So where do you write? I have a small office about ten minutes away from my house and it's essential that I have that space. It's definitely the space where I still the voices in my head and I am very distracted as a person so I like bare walls and I I've often played the same piece of music over and over again.

Abi Morgan3:46

So where

Presenter4:05

Well, you brought up the music. Let's listen to some music now. We're going to hear your first choice, Abby Morgan. Tell me about this one. I couldn't do this list without having some Joni Mitchell. It reminds me of my childhood. You know, my parents listened to Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Janice Joplin. But then when I thought about this record, I thought it's actually travelled through every decade of my life. So I took it away with me to university. I listened to it when I lived on my own. I've listened to it on holiday and I sometimes listen to it still when I'm writing. It's very upbeat and I just love the clarity and purity of her voice.

Speaker 24:37

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning and the first thing that I heard Was a song outside my window And the traffic wrote the words It came a ringin' up like Christmas bells And rapping up like pop

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Pipes and draws, oh, won't you stay, we'll put on the date, and we'll wear it till the night comes.

Speaker 25:07

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning and the first thing that I saw was the sun.

Presenter5:12

That was Jenny Mitchell and Chelsea Morning. Abby, Abby Morgan, you said something really interesting recently. You said in an interview that a few years ago, if somebody had asked you, Are you a feminist? you would have said, Well, I wouldn't really use that term. Not so now. You would absolutely say yes, I am a feminist. Why the change? What's the change?

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I cringe when I hear that. I'm embarrassed that I said that.

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If I look back at my work,

Presenter5:36

You know, going right back from the start where I was writing about a relationship between a woman and a paedophile, and then I moved into sex trafficking of women, and then what it means to be a single woman bringing up a child and watching her become Muslim and through to suffragette. And what I'm writing now is that I've always put women at the heart of my work. So I think what's more interesting is my beautiful teenage 14-year-old daughter Mabel would say she's a feminist. And the thing I find most interesting is when I look at that generation snapping at my heels is how inspiring they are to me. So I hate the fact I said that and I'm glad now I can rectify it and put it absolutely at the heart. What's been your experience as a woman working in the entertainment industry throughout the decades? I mean I grew up watching my mother go out into the industry and work and so I always felt a huge sense of being able to be placed in that world. And I've worked with some terrific men who've really supported very female-centric work.

Abi Morgan6:18

I mean

Presenter6:31

But I've predominantly worked with women. And so my experience in the industry has been about a huge sisterhood, if I'm honest. But I have also witnessed and I have worked with some of the names that have been coming up in the media over the last sort of, you know, year. It's made me really review my own position in it. Indeed, in 2011, your movie The Iron Lady, that was exec produced by Harvey Weinstein. What was your experience of working with him?

Abi Morgan6:53

Yeah.

Presenter6:56

Um in my own experience, he was the guy who sat at the back of the screening room. He was the guy who tapped you on the shoulder and said, Well done. He was the man who wanted to meet you and talk about work.

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I think everyone knew that he was a bully. It is worth saying, of course he d he denies all allegations of non consensual sex, but it's very interesting now to hear from people who worked with him throughout the years and who say

Abi Morgan7:10

See?

Presenter7:19

No, I d I don't think I knew what was going on. I mean I was conscious there was a sort of underlying issue that s made me feel uncomfortable. Were you one of those people?

Presenter7:28

Um

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I I I mean, honestly, what did I think about him? He threw great parties and I think that was incredibly corrupting and seductive. I had heard that he'd been called a rapist.

Abi Morgan7:33

Yeah.

Presenter7:40

And I look back now and think, why did I never challenge that? And there was always that rumour around him.

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You know, the main thing about

Presenter7:48

Harvey was. He was almost a parody of power. I think we put him in that kind of frothy Hollywood uh kind of bubble.

Presenter7:56

But in a way, I don't want to excuse my behaviour because I think I've shocked myself actually in terms of

Presenter8:04

The way you don't listen to yourself and go, This doesn't feel entirely right. I probably had a meeting with him a year before all the allegations came out, and the thing he was interested in is female feminist work. And when you sit down with a Hollywood producer who seems interested in female feminist work, then somewhere along the way, you think, okay, this is good.

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He must um

Presenter8:29

Have an appreciation and a respect for women, and you realise how deceptive that is. We've just come to the end of awards season, and memorably, we saw the winner of Best Actress Frances McDormand, finish her speech by advocating what she called inclusivity riders. A lot of people take a bit of a deep breath at that sort of thing and think, you know, that's just lip service that we're paying to diversity. What do you say? Black Panther. I think that's a game changer. Which is almost exclusively a black cast? Exclusively a black cast, but more than anything, it's sold in the box office. And I think we can no longer say that inclusion shouldn't be included within the business of show business. It's challenging, but it's just essential now. Speaking of which, tell me about your second choice then. This is Sorry by Beyoncé. I think it's an anthem for all women to stop apologising. I apologise when someone bumps into me. I apologise if someone toots at me when it's their fault. And I think it's not just for my generation, not just for my mother's generation, but more than anything, it's for my daughter's generation to say you don't need to say sorry anymore. What I love about Beyoncé is that she's used her power and her commodity and her ability not only as a writer, not only as an artist, but as a producer to get her message across. And I love what she's done, and I love this song.

Abi Morgan8:53

Which is

Speaker 29:45

I ain't far

Abi Morgan9:48

I saw.

Abi Morgan9:49

I saw.

Abi Morgan9:51

Minute, nah I ain't sorry.

Abi Morgan9:55

I saw, I saw, he trying to hold me up, yeah.

Abi Morgan10:02

I pickin' up

Speaker 210:04

I

Speaker 210:06

Uh

Abi Morgan10:06

Get it through the vlogs.

Abi Morgan10:09

I ain't thinking about you.

Abi Morgan10:13

Me and my ladies if I lose a Uh

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Uh

Speaker 210:16

I will give you a little bit of a

Presenter10:18

Fucking my deuces up

Presenter10:20

That was Beyoncé, I'm sorry. Abby Morgan, your first play, Skinned, was staged in 1998. But I want to ask you about the first time you remember the theatre as a place. Gosh, that's really interesting. I mean, the smell of MDF takes me right back. I mean, really, from when I could walk. I was in theatres, because my father ran a number of theatres up and down the country, and my mother was an actress. I remember the itchy nature of theatre seats, and I remember them on the side of my face, which I think is when I used to sleep in them sometimes. My father ran the Goldbanken Theatre in Newcastle for probably nearly a decade. And so one of my happiest memories is

Abi Morgan10:52

And I'm sorry.

Presenter11:00

Saturday matinees, before the matinee, there was a fantastic bar and there'd always be a live band. And my brother and I and my sister would go there and we would sit in the bar and I remember we'd have a bottle of Coke and a packet of salt and shake crisps. How did you get along with your dad when you were a kid, a little kid? My dad was a workaholic, obsessive, funny, complicated, absent, because he was always working. So my memory of my dad would be coming back very late at night, rushing in, grabbing something to eat and going out again. And in terms of how I got on with him,

Presenter11:35

I felt very distant from him as a child, but as I grew older and as I probably entered the f you know, the kind of work he does, he went on to become a T V director, I felt like I got to know him. And certainly he died a decade ago now. I feel at the end of his life I really understood him. Plenty of people, when the kids and the bills come along, they give up that dream of a creative life. What do you make of the fact that they stuck with it?

Presenter12:02

It was the time of repertory theatre. I mean, my mother was in one theatre on and off in repertory theatre for five years. So for me, it was very much a job. But what I also remember very clearly was the periods of unemployment, the periods of waiting for the phone to ring. And I remember the powerlessness of that and realising that without a cast of actors or without a play, you were nothing. I realised that quite early on. How early?

Presenter12:27

I mean more distilled when I was about 10, 11, because my mum's friend was and is the novelist Margaret Drabble. And I used to watch her go up to her office and think, wow, that's amazing. She closes the door, she writes all day, she comes back down and she has supper with her kids and she makes money from this. And at the time, she was divorced. And I thought, that's amazing. Also, I look back more and more, and what I realise about my childhood is that I would often escape to be on my own, to then live in my world. So I remember holidays where I would take a bike and I'd go off riding all day, and I would be in my own world. And I still to this day, I talk out loud continually. And if I want to have an argument with someone, I'll have it out loud. And so I've often there. No, so I think I've chosen a profession where I can almost do that literally all day long.

Abi Morgan13:14

Not with the person there.

Presenter13:21

Let's have some more music, Abby Morgan. We're going to hear your third of the morning. Tell me a little bit about this choice, then.

Presenter13:26

Victoria was really dear to my heart. You know, when I was growing up, what I loved about her was that she represented the northern voice. And as a family, my brother and my sister and my mother and I, we all loved this music. And she's utterly without vanity. And I think the recording we're going to listen to is just utterly from the heart. It's very accessible. And she's a brilliant poet. And she reminds me of happy days with my family in the kitchen in Stoke.

Speaker 313:55

Let's do it, let's do it.

Presenter13:58

Do it do it well.

Speaker 313:58

Amazing.

Presenter13:59

The mood is arriving. Yeah.

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I'm feeling appealing, I've really got an appetite

Presenter14:05

I'm on fire with desire I can handle half the tenors in a male voice choir Let's do it, let's do it tonight But he said I can't do it, I can't do it I don't believe in too much sex

Speaker 314:19

Yeah. This fashion for passion turns it into nervous erex.

Speaker 314:23

No derision, my decision I'd rather watch the spinners on the television I can't do it, I can't do it tonight

Presenter14:32

That was Victoria Wood and a little bit of Let's Do It, the ballad of Barry and Frida. Abby Morgan, your parents split up when you were I've read variously eleven or twelve or thirteen, but around about that kind of adolescent time, difficult enough time actually for somebody. How did that change your life, your day to day life?

Abi Morgan14:42

But around about that kind of adolescent time

Abi Morgan14:45

Yeah.

Presenter14:49

I I was brought up very much by my mother. You know, I remember she got a job, we moved to Stoke on Trent and that was quite a culture shot for me from Avenue. From Stratford-on-Avon and before that we'd been in Newcastle and before that we'd been in Wales and we had absolutely nothing. We didn't have a home to live in. We didn't have

Abi Morgan14:56

From strapped.

Presenter15:05

Any money, and I watched my mum pull us back from the brink, and she was phenomenal, really, you know, and she did it by.

Presenter15:13

getting a job in the local theatre. And my my strongest memory of her was her rushing home at about five o'clock in a track suit, throwing some chops under the grill and then rushing out again to do a play in the evening. And so she got us through our teenage years really. You've spoken about to me this morning about these, you know, the conversations in your head that in fact you have out loud and you mentioned there the amount of moving around you had done. That's a lot of schools for a little kid to go to. How much did you fit in as a kid?

Abi Morgan15:36

Two of the

Presenter15:40

I I mean, I went to seven schools and to go from schools in Newcastle-pon-Tyne to schools in Stratford-born Ayman to schools in Stoke-on-Trent. You know, it's they were very different worlds, and my early teen years were really tough because I was very badly bullied. What what bullies do, of course, is they try to find your weak point. What did they think your weak point was?

Abi Morgan15:58

Point

Presenter16:01

Um, you know, my mother had R P v accent, I had an R P voice. My middle class sense of humour.

Presenter16:09

whatever that is. Pro I don't know. Probably my weakness was you know, even now if I'm on a train I stare at people. I remember from a very early age my daughter used to grab me by the chin and pull my face around to look at her because I would be looking at everybody around me and so

Presenter16:23

I think that I was quite a weird child in terms of I would always go into the heart of a drama. And you like drama. Yeah, I did. In real life, I do. But having said that, I think there's a seriousness to me. And being truthful is really, really important to me.

Abi Morgan16:30

And you like drama? Yeah, I do. In real life, I mean, yes.

Presenter16:41

As a writer, how do you know when you have found truth in what you've written?

Presenter16:46

In theatre, it was when you could hear how silent the audience was. That moment where you have absolute silence is exhilarating. As a writer, it never gets better than that first draft moment when you press send, because you've taken all that energy and all that time and you've managed to get it down on the page. And in that moment, you're the next Becket. You know, you're amazing. And then the notes come. And then you have to share it with the world. Let's have some more of your list of music, Abby Morgan. Tell me about this next one. It's your fourth. This is an extract from Puccini's La Boheme. When I was 18, I lived in Florence for a year. And it was a very beautiful, brilliant, difficult year for me, actually. And this track I listened to over and over again. I think it's just this beautiful female voice and the swell of something that's so poetic that's just transcended centuries and I just love it.

Presenter17:44

Limited.

Presenter18:08

Solomi froze on the mestisa phonemosi piomesais.

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The evil soul are solid.

Presenter18:49

See me Kyamano Mimi, sung by Kirita Kanawa from Puccini's Lab O M with the London Symphony Orchestra there, conducted by Kent Nagano. Um tell me, Abby Morgan, when you've been talking about your childhood, it's interesting to me that you decided pretty early on that you wouldn't reject what your parents did. You did flirt with acting for a short period when you were you you studied English and drama at Exeter University. W you did performances there, presumably.

Abi Morgan19:06

For the short

Abi Morgan19:09

Yeah.

Presenter19:12

Yeah, I did. I mean, honestly, I was I absolutely academically flunked every element of my school. I hated school. Did you? I absolutely hated school. And the day I left school was absolutely liberating. So in terms of

Abi Morgan19:21

Do you have a

Presenter19:28

Following into my parents' profession, it's because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't get into university my first year, you know. I had to take a gap year so I could do my maths GCSE, which I failed three times and I finally got the fourth time. So when you did this little spot of acting when you were at university, did did your mother, the actress, come to see you? Yeah, my mother and my sister, who my sister was an actress at the time as well, came to see me. And I remember coming off stage o afterwards and saying, So what do you think, Mum? and she just looked at me and went

Presenter19:56

No, dear.

Presenter19:58

And everyone's a critic, but actually it was one of the greatest things she did for me. And I haven't talked about it. No, dear, not about the play, about acting. And I knew it. I knew it. I mean, I'm fascinated and impressed by actors and their ability to channel and transcend and just get on stage and s every night. I couldn't do it. I'm self-conscious and awkward. It would be s it's a disaster on stage. Time for some more music, Abby. Tell me about your fifth. What are we going to hear?

Abi Morgan20:05

Yeah. about acting and I knew it.

Presenter20:24

I am a massive Sondyme fan. I love Sondyme because he wrote for actors and I love the way he balances the contradictory nature of relationships. And so I juggled with this record and another, but in the end I chose Being Alive, sung by Adrian Lester in the Don Mar production of Company, which I saw in the mid 90s. And the reason why I've chosen this song is.

Presenter20:53

Take a moment.

Presenter20:56

I found the 90s very hard. Post-university, I worked as a waitress for eight years and I was living in London, I had no money.

Presenter21:06

and I was on my own. And this song captures somebody who's waiting to meet the love of their life. And it was just before I met my partner Jacob, who is also a Sundime fan. And it's it's it's really a song to say thank you to him.

Speaker 221:25

Someone you have to let in

Speaker 221:29

Someone whose feelings you spare Someone who like it or not Will want you to share a little, a lot You've so many reasons for not being with someone But Robert, you haven't got one good reason for being alone

Abi Morgan21:46

It's much better living it than looking at it, Robert.

Presenter21:49

Someone to crowd you with love

Speaker 221:53

Someone to force you to care Uh

Abi Morgan21:57

Some

Speaker 221:57

One to make you come through all the way

Abi Morgan22:00

They're as frightened as you of being alive.

Presenter22:07

Being Alive, sung by Adrian Lester from the nineteen ninety six London cast recording of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company. Abby Morgan, tell me about um The Woman Eating the Lettuce.

Presenter22:18

Well, that that was the first thing I ever wrote, because I was academically disconnected, distracted, often playing hooky, that was a big part of being at school.

Presenter22:28

You know, being on swings in playgrounds thinking, I really should have gone to school today.

Presenter22:32

So I didn't write as a child, but when I went to university in my second year, we all had to write a monologue. And I think I had been the same colour as the walls for most of that period at university. Completely beige.

Abi Morgan22:42

The university.

Presenter22:45

But I loved Alan Bennett and the great gift that writers give you is that you get to read their work and think, I could do that. I would never dare say I could be as funny, as witty, as brilliant as Alan Bennett, but I I thought, Oh yeah, I I'll write something, I'll write from something I'd seen and it so happened that I was travelling h down to Exeter one day on the train and a woman got on the train.

Presenter23:07

in her mid forties, and and she took out a whole iceberg lettuce and she ate it.

Presenter23:11

And it was so fascinating to me. And what was more fascinating was I was the only one watching her. Everyone else read their newspapers and I kept thinking, This is weird. She's eating a whole iceberg lettuce. Now it's probably very, you know, gluten-free, clean eating. But from that I constructed a monologue, and that monologue

Presenter23:28

I performed, and although I don't think I performed it brilliantly, what I did here was what we just talked about earlier, which is silence. And for the first time ever, a tutor who had never spoken to me came up to me and said, That was good.

Presenter23:43

And that was the moment when I thought, Oh, I could do this. I could write. I don't mean to be glib, but I have speaking because you're talking about the woman eating the lettuce, I'm thinking I read a story about you stuffing your face with canopies at the National Portrait Gallery. Yeah, with the moment. When you were at Thatcher. Yes, when you were waitressing. Yes. It must have been about ninety three.

Abi Morgan23:56

Yeah, we are at Thatcher.

Presenter24:02

an amazing canopaise at this party, and I remember I was stuffing my face with canopes, and this rather old, slightly short woman came towards me and looked at me and smiled, and it was Margaret Thatcher. And I remember at the time thinking, Oh my gosh, isn't that oh my gosh

Presenter24:20

And I ended up writing a film about her. More to come on that. For now, your next piece of music. It's your sixth choice of the day. This is Bach. It's Arya from the Goldberg variations. I listen to this probably every single day. I love this piece of music because it always brings order to the chaos in my mind. And this is specifically Glengould. And I was introduced to this version by Steve McQueen, who used an extract of it in a film that we wrote together, Shame. And what I love about this is you can almost hear Glengould breathing.

Presenter25:58

That was Aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations, played by Glenn Gould. So, Abby Morgan, we've spoken a little bit about The Iron Lady, literally, and also the movie that you made of that name in 2011 about Margaret Thatcher, of course, and it won Meryl Streep BAFTA, won her Golden Globe, won an Academy Award, an Oscar. It portrayed not just Britain's first female Prime Minister and also intriguingly parts of her early life, her early marriage and then her time in power. It also portrayed her decline, the decline of her health.

Abi Morgan26:06

And also

Speaker 226:15

One on a cat.

Speaker 326:27

Uh

Abi Morgan26:27

Uh

Abi Morgan26:29

Two.

Presenter26:30

It was made as a movie while she was still alive. Margaret Thatcher died in twenty thirteen, I think. Did you have any reservations at the time about a movie being made that was showing the decline of a person through through illness?

Abi Morgan26:32

Margaret Thatcher died in 20

Presenter26:43

I think I think about that quite a lot. I I mean, in many ways, if it hadn't been out in the public domain, um her daughter had written quite a long article about what it meant to live with her mother um and dementia. But also I think the film is about

Presenter27:00

a public figure and it's about the loss of power and the power of loss really and I hope that we try to give that story some dignity but also I'm a dramatist I have to go behind the door I have to and in a way I think there has to be nothing that I can't write. I thought long and hard about a piece I did on the tsunami, the Boxing Day tsunami and that bothers me more. actually, because I felt that was too close. Although I'm very proud of that work and I'm so I think you're always thinking about those things, but really it was a desire to write about her politics. We've touched on the often very difficult areas that you've chosen to write about.

Presenter27:46

What have you come to understand about what it is to be human from the the places that you've explored through your work?

Presenter27:57

I remember I wrote a drama called Murder. It was about four different perspectives on a murder. A woman lost her late teen son in a random killing. And I met this woman who had had a not dissimilar experience. And one day her son went out and was randomly killed in the street. And this was a few years on, and she was talking to us about the experience.

Presenter28:22

And I was hugely impressed by her. And as we went to leave, somebody made a joke, and it wasn't a terribly good joke, but we all laughed. But the difference was she laughed a couple of beats longer. And I looked at her and I realized

Presenter28:36

Oh, you've known insanity.

Abi Morgan28:38

Right.

Presenter28:39

And yet here you are putting on your face and coming into the world again. And how would you ever survive something like that? I guess what I'm often trying to do is say you're not alone, and this is the contradictory nature of life and relationships and change really. And that's what you can do as a dramatist. Tell me about your seventh.

Presenter29:01

I could not have this list without having Sigor Ross, specifically Hoppy Polo. I first heard this properly when I went to the Latitude Festival with Jacob and my two children, Jesse and Mabel, who are now 16 and 14, and they were tiny then. And we watched Sigor Ross perform Hoppy Pola. It was a beautiful night, it was magical, and the kids were on my shoulders. And it's a reminder to stay in the happy moments. And also, Jesse plays it on the piano. And there's probably nothing that makes me happier than when I come home and I hear my kids playing the piano. You know, my husband grips my hand and says, stay in the moment, listen to this.

Abi Morgan29:41

Your soundy

Abi Morgan29:44

And Dumsty Hill came of Dumpsteer Hundred.

Abi Morgan29:55

Skip.

Presenter30:05

Red Board

Abi Morgan30:07

And can't go east there.

Abi Morgan30:14

Winter spring girl

Presenter30:17

Sigurd Ross performing Hoppy Pola. Tell me, Abby Morgan, for you personally, you used earlier on this morning when we were talking the phrase, you know, still the voice is in my head, and you've spoken about having conversations literally out loud.

Abi Morgan30:28

Conversations literally out

Presenter30:31

You're in your entering your midlife now. You're born in nineteen sixty eight. Do do have the voices changed? Have what they're saying changed? Have has what you want to say on the page changed dramatically?

Abi Morgan30:33

Yeah.

Presenter30:45

I thought a lot about this interview today, and people say, Don't say that, say that, don't say that. And Jake, my partner said, Be you, be truthful. And

Presenter30:55

Being truthful means that.

Presenter30:57

I want to say what I feel and I want to be who I am, but I also recognize that 50.

Presenter31:03

And as a feminist and as a woman, I need to grab my own hand and stand by myself and maybe think more like a man. I talk now sometimes, I do QA's after my work, and I often get young female writers coming up to me, and I want to grab their hand and say, It's really tough in your twenties, I think, you know, when you don't know what you're doing and how you're going to get there, and are you going to get all those pieces of the jigsaw that you see everyone ahead of you? And you don't get every piece, and it doesn't all fit perfectly, and there's probably always a l a corner missing. But eventually you will have your own picture in front of you, and you will have your own life in front of you, and I've got that pretty mapped out in front of me now, and I really, really

Presenter31:46

I want to enjoy it and I really want to capitalise on it and I want to nurture up the next generation. But you mentioned that, you know, you look at the jigsaw and there's maybe a bit missing. Is there a bit missing that you think, well, I'd like to just slot that bit in the jigsaw? Well, of course, everyone would love to win their Oscar, wouldn't they? I'm so glad you said that, because people sit opposite me and say, it's their own awards. Well, I kind of love myself and hate myself for saying that, really. I mean, what would I wear first off?

Abi Morgan32:06

Opposite means yes, they're only awards.

Presenter32:14

But um I I think I think everybody should have a piece missing. I mean, do you really want to I mean, wouldn't I would hate me if I sat there going, I've got everything worked out. It looks but of course there's always a piece missing. Let me ask you then, because you've got a obviously a wonderful imagination, to imagine this island. How how do you imagine you'll be on the island?

Presenter32:34

I will love the blue sky, but I need to hear other people. I think I'm going to struggle, actually. I have a dog who I love dearly, so I will probably have to.

Presenter32:44

Domesticize an alligator or whatever other animal will be around. Good luck with that. Tell me about your eighth there. I have chosen Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I saw my daughter Mabel play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz a few years ago and it's probably one of my proudest moments. But also my partner Jake plays the ukulele. So this song reminds me of Jake and Jesse and Mabel and being with them and just it's just I can see it on a desert island, this song.

Presenter33:11

Santa.

Speaker 233:16

Rainbow

Speaker 233:19

Way away.

Speaker 233:24

Yeah.

Speaker 333:24

Dreams that you dream of once in a love.

Speaker 333:31

The b

Presenter33:38

Well

Speaker 233:39

Uh

Presenter33:40

Oh the

Presenter33:47

Israel kumako wiba ole singing somewhere over the rainbow. It's time now for me to give you, Abby, the books. I give every one the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, and they get to take another book along too. I wonder what yours is going to be.

Abi Morgan33:53

Mm.

Abi Morgan33:56

Well

Abi Morgan33:58

And they

Presenter34:01

Well, I'm a great one for people telling me about a book they've read and I go, I love that book too, and I've never read it. And the one that obviously people talk about is Proust. And I often go, Yeah, Proust.

Presenter34:12

I've never read any Proust, so I would like the complete works of Proust, and in my mind I can try and adapt them for screenplays. So that's what I'd like. That's very much yours then. Is your book You're Allowed a Luxury?

Presenter34:23

I have a reoccurring dream which is I didn't go to school and I look at my kids doing their homework and I hear them reading out their poems and I hear my son giving me the equation for ethanol and I think I want to know that stuff so I'd like to take their entire collection of exercise books from when they're children. It'll keep them close to me. So I'd like to take that. Well that's your luxury then. Which of the tracks would you save?

Presenter34:45

I think I will take.

Presenter34:47

Hoppy Pola by Sigoros because it will remind me.

Presenter34:53

Not to be distracted and to enjoy the beauty of the moment. It's yours. Abby Morgan, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you so much. What a pleasure.

Presenter35:13

Hi, I really hope you enjoyed that interview with Abby Morgan. You'll have heard a refer there to the film director Steve McQueen. They co-wrote the film Shame together. Well, he was my guest back in 2014. He also chose that beautiful Glenn Gould track. The star of suffragette Anne-Marie Duff was my guest recently, and Stephen Sondheim, Abby loves his musicals, has been cast away twice. Abby also mentioned Lady Thatcher. She was Roy Plumley's guest back in 1978.

Speaker 235:42

You've described your upbringing as rather Puritan.

Speaker 335:46

Well, it was very strict.

Speaker 335:48

Um

Speaker 335:50

We went to church twice on Sundays and to Sunday school twice.

Speaker 335:54

We were never allowed any amusements on Sundays.

Speaker 335:59

We did have people in and we'd talk.

Speaker 336:02

Uh I think wartime changed our ideas quite a lot because you had to do all sorts of different things on Sundays.

Speaker 336:09

But I can remember

Speaker 336:11

I think the toughest thing

Speaker 336:13

of my childhood.

Speaker 336:15

was that my father taught me very firmly indeed.

Speaker 336:20

You do not follow the crowd because you are afraid of being different. You decide what to do yourself. If necessary, you lead the crowd, but you never just follow.

Speaker 336:33

Oh, it was very hard indeed, but my goodness maid stood me in good stead.

Presenter36:37

Lady Thatcher talking to Roy. All those programmes are available to download. It's been great to see how much you, our listeners, seem to have enjoyed our classic Desert Island discs, including Sue Townsend and Annie Lennox's programmes. We put them out while we were off air. We're going to be doing that again when we take our summer break.

Presenter36:56

Next time on Desert Island Discs, my guest will be Sir Peter Lampel, who's really fascinating about, among many other things, the whole issue of social mobility. I do hope you'll join us.

Presenter37:10

This is the BBC.

Speaker 237:15

From ancient philosophers.

Presenter37:16

Uh

Speaker 237:17

To modern statesmen.

Presenter37:18

He was one of the men.

Speaker 237:19

It's important Media is not just in China, but in world politics. The story of China through the lives of 20 of its most influential

Presenter37:26

Provincial citizens. Her name was Sung Mei Ling. She would become better known to the world as Madame Chiang Kai-sheri. The pioneer work of your ancestors, Confucius, Li Ting Zhang Gong. Chinese characters from BBC Radio 4. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.